The old man and the old woman had two sons and a daughter. The daughter's name was Dubolgo Pichai. She was such a beauty that you won’t find another like her. When her father and mother died, Dubolgo Pichai and her two brothers remained. Both brothers loved her very much. It used to be that the elder brother was getting ready to go hunting, she went out to see him off, and the brother said to her:
- If, by your luck, I come across animals and birds, I will buy you bracelets and rings, sister Dubolgo Pichai!
Dubolgo Pichai comes out to see off his younger brother, and he promises her gifts. Her brothers bought her everything they promised: luckily for her, their hunt was always successful.
Soon the brothers got married one after another. The wives they got were bad and grumpy: they quarrel with their husbands every day and live among themselves like cats and dogs. From the very first days, they disliked Dubolgo Pichai: they were jealous that she was the first beauty in the village, that she succeeded in everything she undertook, that her brothers doted on her. Evil women were ready to drive her away from the world and constantly slandered her to their husbands. They were especially angry that the brothers, when going hunting, always promised something to their sister Dubolgo Pichai. At first they made promises to their wives, but then they didn’t come across anything.
One day the brothers went hunting. Their evil wives planned to destroy Dubolgo Pichai.
“Here’s what,” they say, “we’ll do: we’ll kill the best black stallion.” When our husbands come home, we will say: “Your beloved sister Dubolgo Pichai did a bad thing: she was the one who killed your good black stallion.”
They did it as they planned: they killed the black stallion.
The Dubolgo Pichai brothers are going home from hunting, taking with them all sorts of animals and birds, and they are bringing many gifts to their sister. The wives came out to meet them, crying loudly, each complaining to her husband:
- Oh, dear hubby, what did your beloved sister do! She killed your beloved black stallion... She loves neither us nor you: you buy her all sorts of gifts, and she only thinks of doing some harm to you.
Brothers say:
“It’s not a big deal that our black stallion has disappeared: we will find another horse just as good, but we won’t find a second such smart and kind sister anywhere.”
The brothers were not angry with Dubolgo Pichai: they gave her all the gifts. Their wives became even more embittered. They grind their teeth and think to themselves: “Somehow we will destroy you, hated Dubolgo Pichai! Your brothers will stop loving you, they will tie you to the tail of a stallion!”
No matter what they came up with, no matter how much they slandered Dubolgo Pichai, they could not achieve anything.
One day the brothers went hunting. Dubolgo Pichai came out to see them off, and right there the tears were rolling down like large peas. Elder brother says:
“If, luckily for you, I kill an expensive animal or bird, sister, I’ll buy you a good gift!” And the other brother promises her gifts. This time the brothers hunted even more successfully: they came across a lot of all kinds of animals and all kinds of birds. They hunted for a long time and stayed overnight in the forest. The younger brother says:
“Tell me, big brother, why is my heart aching so much today?”
“My heart, brother, is not in the right place.”
No matter what bad happens to our Dubolgo Pichai! Our sister is kind, meek, like a dove - our wives have no reason to hate her. And while the brothers were hunting, their wives conceived an evil deed.
The eldest says:
- Let's harass Dubolgo Pichai with cunning. Go quickly and heat the bathhouse and melt the wax in a large cauldron. When the sauna heats up and the wax becomes liquid like water, tell me.
The younger brother's wife did just that. They pretended to be kind and affectionate, they say to Dubolgo Pichai:
- Come with us to the bathhouse, wash and take a steam bath.
For a long time, Pichai did not expect worse, she went with them to the bathhouse.
In the bathhouse, one daughter-in-law is more affectionate than the other: they wash Dubolgo Pichai and douse her head.
- Darling Dubolgo Pichai, stand still: we ourselves will wash and dry you, and rinse and rinse your head!
Younger daughter-in-law says:
“Well, you’ve washed yourself and your hair has been washed, now you need to be doused for the last time.” Come on, sister, let's douse Dubolgo Pichai with warm water!
The eldest daughter-in-law brought a large cauldron of melted wax and poured it on Dubolgo Pichai. The girl immediately fell on the bench as if knocked down. The wax covered Dubolgo Pichai's entire body with a thin layer, like a leaf, and filled her throat and ears. The villainous daughters-in-law were delighted to finally get rid of the hated Dubolgo Pichai.
They brought it home from the bathhouse, cleaned it up, dressed it up, and put it on a bench in the front corner. They began to wait for their husbands. At sunrise the brothers returned.
“Why,” they say, “isn’t our beloved sister Dubolgo Pichai meeting us today?”
The wives ran out to meet them crying loudly:
“Your beloved sister suddenly fell and died!” We've been waiting for you all evening and all night and couldn't wait. We washed her without you and dressed her to put her in the coffin. Go and look at your dear sister and prepare a coffin for her.
They say this to their husbands, and they themselves roar at the top of their voices.
The brothers entered the hut. Look, their sister Dubolgo Pichai lies on the front bench under a white canvas. They revealed her face. And it seems to the brothers that she is telling them:
“My dear brothers, my protectors! Why did the evil daughters-in-law destroy me?”
The brothers' tears began to flow like hail. They made a coffin from rotting wood. They put their beloved sister Dubolgo Pichai in it and took him to a large forest, to the crossroads of three roads. They built a platform and placed the coffin on it. And baskets of wheat were placed on the platform near the coffin.
The brothers returned home in sadness, but did not tell their wives where they placed Dubolgo Pichai’s coffin, even though they inquired.
And on the other side of the large forest, across the river, lived an old widow. She had an only son, his name was Virtyan. Virtyan was a big, strong, handsome guy, he loved to work, but no matter what business Virtyan took up, he had no happiness in anything. He was lucky in only one thing: no one in the whole village had better geese than him. Virtyan began to notice that his geese always returned home from the same direction. Virtyan thinks and wonders: “Where are my geese going? Where did they get into the habit? Let me keep an eye on them.”
The next day he released the geese, but did not drive them anywhere. “Let them go wherever they want,” he thinks, “and I’ll follow them.”
The geese went again in the same direction from where they returned every day. The geese are coming, and Virtyan is not far behind them. The geese reached the big river, swam to the other side, and Virtyan also swam after them. I almost drowned: the river was very fast. The geese reached the forest not far from the river and stopped in a clearing. Virtyan looks - in that clearing three roads converge, and at the intersection there is a high platform, and on the platform there is a coffin. Baskets are placed on both sides of the coffin, and wheat is poured out of them. The geese passed under the platform and began to pick up the wheat. Without hesitation, Virtyan lifted the coffin onto his shoulders and carried it home. He reached the big river again and said:
“If I cross the river, I’ll bring the coffin to my mother, let her tell me what to do with it.”
Virtyan entered the river, and the water was only up to his ankles. Virtyan reached the middle, looked up the river - the water stopped and stood like a wall; I looked down the river - the water was already drying up. As soon as he managed to get out of the river, the stormy water rushed again with a roar. Virtyan brought the coffin home and showed it to his mother. His mother told him to open the coffin. They opened the lid of the coffin and there was a smell of fragrant flowers. They threw back the canvas and looked at a beautiful girl lying there. Virtyan’s mother thinks: “This beauty doesn’t look like she’s dead, she seems to have fallen asleep.”
He sees that his throat is filled with something up to the tongue; looks - and his ears are flooded. The old lady guessed that it was wax and said:
- Come on, son of Virtyan, heat the bathhouse hotter.
Virtyan heated the bathhouse. Mother says:
- Take the girl to the bathhouse, put her on the shelves and leave. I'll steam it.
— Virtyan did just that. The old woman took off the girl’s embroidered outer shirt, then her undershirt, laid her face down and began to hover with a birch broom. He looks and sees liquid wax dripping. The girl groaned and then began to breathe. The old woman took it off the shelf, put it on the bench, covered it with white canvas and called her son.
Virtyan entered, looked and was delighted: the girl was breathing as if in a dream. He sat down with his mother next to her. At midnight the girl began to breathe deeper and began to toss and turn. Then she turned her face up.
When Virtyan saw her face, he himself didn’t know, poor thing, what to do, what to say: he had never seen such a beauty anywhere. And the girl opened her eyes, looked in front of her and said:
- Dear brother!..
She mistook Virtyan for her brother, but saw that he was not a brother.
Virtyan stands in front of the girl, looks at her, cannot take his eyes off. The girl opened her eyes again, began talking to the old woman and Virtyan, and began asking how she got to them. They told her everything. Then Dubolgo Pichai got dressed, dressed up, and went with them to the hut. She didn't tell them anything about herself.
“I don’t remember anything,” he says. After Dubolgo Pichai settled with them, no matter what Virtyan undertakes, every matter he does is in dispute. And he named the girl Ucyaska, which means “happiness.” And when he married her, life became even better.
One day Dubolgo Pichai is sitting under the window and sees two people approaching the hut. She recognized them immediately: they were her brothers, only not the same as before—exhausted, ragged; On the clothes there is a patch on a patch, a hole on a hole. When Dubolgo Pichai saw them, tears began to fall - drip-drip!
The brothers came up to the window, bowed to the ground and asked:
- Have pity on us, mistress! Feed and water the poor people.
- Come in! Tell me where you were, where you went, what you saw,” says Dubolgo Pichai. The brothers entered and one said to the other:
- Look how much the owner looks like our sister Dubolgo Pichai! If we didn’t know that our sister died, we would have thought it was her.
And Dubolgo Pichai fed them, gave them something to drink, and made a hot bath for them. The brothers came from the bathhouse, thanked the kind hostess for the greetings, for the affection, and were about to leave, but Dubolgo Pichai did not let them go.
“Where,” he says, “are you going to go at night?” Stay the night with us. And my husband will soon return from hunting. He will be happy to see you: he loves to listen to the stories of wanderers.
The brothers stayed with her overnight. Virtyan soon returned from the hunt and said to Dubolgo Pichai:
- Look how much game I shot! Everything turned out to be your luck.
He greeted passers-by and began talking to them. The elder brother sighed heavily and began to tell:
“And we, honorable master, were as happy and rich as you.” We lived well, we had a sister, her name was Dubolgo Pichai. We both loved her more than anything in the world. We have not seen girls more beautiful than her, and my sister’s mind was even more beautiful than her face... She, honorable master, had a face similar to your wife. Our villainous wives ruined her! We still don’t know how they tormented our beloved sister. After her death, no matter what we do, we have no luck in anything! So we became impoverished, completely ruined and wander around the world...
Brother Dubolgo Pichai did not finish the story - he began to cry, and the other brother’s tears flowed like a river.
And Dubolgo Pichai could not stand it, looking at the grief of her brothers, and also cried bitterly. Virtyan looks at them - he doesn’t know what to do, and he also began to tan.
They cried, then calmed down a little, then Dubolgo Pichai said to them:
- My dear brothers, after all, I am your dear sister - Dubolgo Pichai! Virtyan saved me, brought me back to life again. Stay live with us!
The brothers were glad that they had found their beloved sister, and they all began to live together happily and happily.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru